


Smile

by Natterina



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, No Spoilers, Romance, Sora running away, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11953581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: In a world where a cake shoots you through the roof and a drink shrinks you to the size of an ant, Sora thinks his magic won’t stand out too much.





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DatFearlessChick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DatFearlessChick/gifts).



> Gifting this to DatFearlessChick because you're always so supportive every time I publish something, and you've been happily letting me bounce ideas off you :)

Smile, Sora thinks, because Riku hates him.

Smile, because he loves him.

And smile, because Sora’s going to end up killing him.

* * *

It starts when Sora is young, long bladed grass skimming along hypersensitive fingers when he runs through the fields, laughter ringing in his ears and the breeze chilling the tips of his nose and ears. It starts when _it_ turns Sora around, a pull across the seemingly endless distance in the yellow grass fields, and he spots silver hair glinting back through the blades. It is in every grain of sand that whispers in his ears, the stories in his mind from every lap of the ocean waves. It is in the clash of thunder, the smile on Riku’s face before thatched-roof houses set ablaze, and Sora reigns it in with clenched fists and fabric around his fingers.

He’s some sort of twisted flower child, a strength thrumming beneath his finger tips that begs to be unleashed as each day turns into years, the starry sky bright as he keeps exploring the fields and the sea with Riku only one step behind. It is a friendship that _it_ approves of, curling out towards him and willing Sora to only step closer. He wraps his fingers up in ribbons, multiple colours of silk that dull the world, make it dim and grey and unfeeling. _It_ turns the world on its head, till only Riku remains a splash of yellow and black in a world Sora turns himself away from.

It is a world where Sora grows from a wide-eyed child with no power beneath his skin to a young man bitter against it all, as Riku leaves and returns in steel and cloth. Sora grows from childish accidents to holding power greater than anything the worlds can hold, a physical being he can stretch out and inquire with, prod, detect. It is Sora knowing Riku is upset before the first tear comes into being, the panicked banging on the walls of his heart when Kairi is saved by another’s spells.

It is a fire that starts in a barn and consumes a city, and Sora feels the chains breaking with every splash of rain on a stained-glass window.

* * *

They have a nightly ritual. It’s a secret one, for the worlds are not yet ready for the kind of love they have. The universe is cold and unfeeling and pushes against them with every breath they take, but Riku still meets Sora by candlelight at the shack by the ocean. Under steel and red cloth he is _Sora’s_ , soft and pliable and beholden to his will, but Sora never _ever_ takes advantage of that.

When they are done with the heat and the lust, the love that spills from chapped lips and hoarse voices, the ocean retreats as the sun prepares to rise. Sora takes Riku’s hair, his beautiful long and silver hair that glitters like the moon on the ocean surface, and ties it up. His fingers work like magic ( _and it is_ , but no one knows, not even Riku), combing through fine hair and twisting it, pulling it up into intricate designs that should not be possible and ties it off with a discrete blue ribbon. Sora’s ribbon, his colour and his token, a reminder of times long gone when Riku tucks his hair up under his cap as Sora’s fingers brush against his collarbones.

It is one such moment when Sora smiles. Riku does not notice the silence, as Sora contemplates the far wall of the shack and wonders _why_. The brush of his fingers against Riku’s scalp is intimate, the final touch of skin and the last goodbye, and the urge to run his fingers fully through such beautiful locks.

By the time Riku figures out his plan Sora will be thousands of worlds away, and he’ll be halfway across the vast ocean on this tiny world.

Because _it_ is getting too difficult to hide, pulsing beneath his skin and reacting with the world around him in constant pops of electric shocks. It is getting too difficult to trek down to the shack every evening with a candle close to dying, for a few hours with a man he will never be able to _love_ publically. It is impossible to hide, with Riku’s skin beneath his hands and the whispered _I love you_ , but the midnight trysts keep piling up and Sora knows it is taking its toll on them both.

And so Riku cannot know his plan. As the _thing_ within him grows in strength each day, the world twists and turns in response. Riku hates him because they can never be together, and loves him for a million more reasons and adds to them each day, and Sora’s going to take his pretty little heart and tear it in two because Riku doesn’t know he plans to run.

If he does, he’ll follow, and that spells death for the both of them.

Sora would prefer the hangman’s noose to be away from his little neck, but if it’s all the same in the end, he’d rather have _that_ noose than the one that is building up beneath his skin each day. _It_ is growing, stronger now than ever before and begging for an outlet. _It_ is meant to be used, not neglected, and certainly not only used in aiding _hair fashion_.

Sora smiles and kisses Riku’s cheek as he leaves the shack, a goodbye hidden in the space between his parted lips and the promise to see him on his return to land.

By that same evening Sora is in Traverse Town and Riku is on a painted ocean, a package en route that contains one crisp goodbye letter and a single blue ribbon.

Always blue, always the one used to tie up long silver hair.

* * *

Sora’s in the Deep Jungle the morning after, but already there’s something following him. He’s tried to refrain from using _it_ , hated to draw attention to himself but he’s been followed and he has no _choice_ but to disappear completely.

The evening after and he’s in a small coastal town on the edge of some world or another, and the morning after that he’s in a strange world where the cat can turn invisible and the wrong bite of a cake has him soaring through the roof.

No one questions the cottage that appears in the middle of the woods two miles away from the strange man who holds an eternal tea party. No one questions it, because Sora makes the world believe it has always been there and has always needed a new owner, and Sora purchases it without ever handing over a single gold coin. He belongs to it as much as the cottage belongs to him, as _it_ bursts free from the chains he keeps it at bay with to create something _physical_ and _viable_.

Sora’s name whispers through the floorboards and the magic hangs in the air, fixes up the cottage with flair whilst leaving a scent that tingles in the air like ash and dust and ground up glass. It clogs his lungs more than once but that, he supposes, is the payback for refusing to use it.

He coughs the ash and the dust in vicious hacking fits, but it’s worth it, his magic whispers, because he should never have bottled himself away for so long. He should have _thought_ about consequences before he pulled his disappearing act, but no one has followed him this time and he should be _safe_. In a world where a cake shoots you through the roof and a drink shrinks you to the size of an ant, he thinks his magic won’t stand out too much.

He smiles, because if he doesn’t, he’ll cry.

* * *

The world will never find him, Sora is confident of that. _It_ protects him, the thrumming beneath his skin travelling through the soil and the air. It is a misdirected pathway, the map which changes before certain eyes and encourages an alternative route, the tree that blocks the path and the river that breaks its bounds. It is Sora, alone in a cottage with a pesky cat as the occasional visitor, the smell of unfortunate souls and _that dreaded thing_ that lurks beneath his skin.

It is a curse, the shadow that follows him, lurches down his throat and splits his skin at the seams.

(It is _never ever a curse_ , because it brought Sora to _Riku_ and without his little tricks he would never have captured the silveret’s heart and selfishly locked it away with a key).

Summers pass, each one laden with sunshine and flowers but it’s _dull_. _It_ allows him to see colours other cannot, the varying shades of blue and pink and red and yellow, but without Riku there the magic twists him. The world is _dull_ , because _it_ curses him, fouler than a witch’s curse as it forces him to see the dullness of all that does not come from _it_ directly. His little cottage is a splendour of colour, a painted house upon a grey and blurry canvas, easel cracked and paint brush snapped. It is colourful and lovely and _alive_ , and the whole world dims in comparison to anything he makes himself.

Sora’s never called _it_ for what it is. His life has been a circle of denial and acceptance, using it when it suits and denying it when it does not. His power is a world of untapped possibilities and bitter magic that twists and turns against him when he refuses it. It takes years to control the flinching, the nervous tick and the inability to look up from the floor, but Sora has a whole forest nearly to himself and he has somewhat tamed the wildfire in his bones.

It doesn’t last.

* * *

Two summers from the day Sora locks the shack on the play island’s beach, Sora wakes to the world screeching in his ears. _It_ is in a panic, because _wards have been broken_ and _someone has passed through_ and it’s not anyone from Wonderland because they _can’t pass through_. Sora falls elbow first from his bed to the floor, his hands clasped tight over his ears as _it_ whistles in his brain telling him to get _up_.

He staggers from the floor to the dresser to the kitchen, a foul sooty texture coating his lungs and his tongue. He coughs, fearful. The rumour of the haunted cottage keeps those away who _do_ manage to get through the wards, but _it_ is terrified and recoiling. His power pulls in from the forest entirely, and Sora can feel it building up in his stomach and bubbling in his chest. He throws pots and pans from the kitchen into drawers, anything remotely suspicious or identifying disappearing out of sight and out of mind. Everything incriminating, _everything_ and _it_ crackles and cackles manically.

Sora knows he’s the only one who can feel it, but _it_ changes tack, wild and excited because _something new is happening_ , an interesting stranger walks down the road untraveled. Sora feels every slice of a weapon clearing the path, feels it whizzing through his teeth like a metal fork scraped through them.

He needs to hide and to reveal himself, be a rumour with a little-known source, and Sora prods distractedly at the pot in the fireplace (never a cauldron, _don’t be stupid and suspicious_ ).

There is a knock at the door, and _it_ inside him bangs on the walls of his stomach and curdles the bile in his throat. He does not know if he bids the door open or of _it_ does it for him, a ravaging mess of excitement and anticipation that Sora wishes to hide from it alarms him so _much_.

The stranger sits at the table – _definitely familiar_ , _it_ pulsates differently around strangers- and Sora pokes around with his gleeful magic to try to discern who it is and without turning from the pot.

Tall, moderately muscular, male, _reeks_ of marshland and travelling, and battered by the elements and a freezing cold not native to Wonderland. He smells of wet clothing exposed to the cold windy air, the scent of the outdoors clinging to his skin. There is sea brine and sun cream in there somewhere, caked into the skin and the pores, years old and growing fainter by the day. Long fingers tap tap tap on the table top, nails short as he leans back in the chair and crosses one leg over the other.

Sora prods, trying to establish a mental picture without turning around. Hair smells like the wind and lemon oil. Prods _deeper_ , there’s something in his pocket. _It_ dances gleefully, draws Sora’s attention to the left-hand pocket of the stranger’s cloak.

He’s looking for someone, he says, but Sora’s not paying attention.

There are the remains of bread in the right one – _no_ , something similar, something from Agrabah, a handful of nuts and a potion for healing. In the left-hand pocket, though, _it_ directs Sora there with almost reckless abandon.

A pouch of coins, useless in Wonderland. A tea bag – _Sora_ smirks-, and then finally _it_ bursts madly behind his eyelids in a white-hot pain as Sora locks onto the object in the bottom of the left pocket.

One singular blue ribbon.

The pain splits through Sora’s skull with enough force that he drops the stirrer into the pot and clutches both sides of it desperately to dull the pain. A sizzling sound courses through the air alongside the smell of burning flesh, but Sora grits his teeth. Ignore it, _it_ will heal it later, and all wounds are necessary to protect himself.

The stranger rushes to help him, and Sora laughs, because he’s not really a stranger now is he?

As a hand reaches out to touch his shoulder, a gesture of help and comfort, Sora forces his hyper-quick breathing to slow down lest he make himself dizzy. There’s only one door into the cottage, and the windows are modestly sized enough that he can’t flee out of them. There’s only one person he loves in all the worlds, and he’s standing beside him.

The magic snaps from Sora’s control, thriving on the conflict in his chest and the ache in his heart. Sora keeps quiet, wonders how in the worlds Riku _found_ him, but refuses to turn, to look. Seeing his face confirms it, and Sora cannot accept his safe-house has been compromised.

 _It_ forgets him, takes control of itself in the midst of the adrenaline and fear, and Sora wonders if he has ever really lost control or if he’s unwilling to admit the lengths of his own madness. It is forgotten and gleeful, thriving in the pressure of Riku’s hand on his arm and the fear in Sora’s heart.

 _It_ is a thousand wolves howling at the moon, a crescendo of sound that builds up in Sora’s ears. It is the rushing of wings beating in his periphery, the waves of the ocean crashing against his heart, and he truly does not know if he is in control of it anymore.

“Who are you looking for?” The noise is so loud in his ears that he cannot hear his own voice. There’s a look of exasperation. A hand on his arm, a face close to his own.

“You.”

Sora takes his hands off the pot: the fire has died, and he doesn’t know when. He looks up and to the side, and meets beautiful eyes he has not met in two years. He meets hair chopped short at the shoulders, no longer held up by any sort of tie. He sees frown lines and dark circles that signify months of an endless search. He sees colour, the silver of Riku’s hair and the blue of his eyes and the tan of his skin. He sees _it_ , rising behind him and crackling, more trouble than it is worth.

He sees a man who is in love with him, who he loves in return, and who he must protect from himself at all costs. The cottage screams his name as Sora’s wrist is trapped in a grasp, and Riku’s voice breaks everything. _It_ claps like crack of thunder, and Wonderland feels the heat from its sun disappearing.

Sora smiles, because what come’s next is _really_ going to hurt.


End file.
